Abstract: Liability penalty and preventive penalty are two sides of the penal system:on the one hand,liability penalty imposes retribution on the offender's past behavior; on the other hand, preventive penalty prevents the offender and other members of the public from committing crimes in the future. The academic circles generally support the determination of preventive punishment within the scope of liability punishment. However,the comprehension theory may cause ambiguity,and the pointand-frame dispute when determining the sentencing standard. The root of these problems is the unclear positioning of the liability penalty system. The liability penalty based on penal passivism should take the core position in the penalty system with preventive penalty subordinating to liability punishment. On this basis,the dispute in the establishment of sentencing standards can be transformed from point-and-frame to establishment procedure.

Key words: liability penalty, preventive penalty, penal passivism, theory of comprehension, antinomy